The Golden Sun Rises
by The Exile
Summary: Geralt and his best friends meet up in a tavern to get roaring drunk. The Witcher is unhappy with Dandelion's dire predictions of his future, so he puts him right over several bottles of vodka, a serious Dwarven game of Gwent and an agreeable barmaid. A more open-ended and hopeful retelling of the 'caught two-timing' ending of The Witcher 3.


"You sure do talk bullshit."

Dandelion glanced over his shoulder at the aging Witcher, giving him a look that made it clear his professional pride was deeply wounded. His cross-eyed sideways grin also made it clear he was already absolutely plastered. It was only early afternoon. This was normal for their reunion. Dandelion liked to try and pretend it wasn't normal for the rest of the year as well.

"Is this a general literary criticism, or is there a specific work that you have in mind? Let me guess," he said, waving his arm back in what he thought was a theatrical pose. He almost knocked Zoltan's drink all over his cards, which would have interrupted a very serious Dwarves-only game of Gwent and probably gotten them all killed, "It's something I've written about you. Otherwise you, being the connoisseur of fine arts that you are, wouldn't have bothered to even look at it."

"I've known you long enough that I can't exactly escape learning all your ballads from memory, but in this particular case, you're right," said Geralt, who had sat down opposite him with a large bottle of strong vodka, "It's about me. About the downright slanderous lies you're probably telling every wench in Novigrad about me over a bottle of vodka on their bedside cabinet."

"Hypocrisy notwithstanding - Geralt, I've told you my eyes are only for my Priscilla these days - not being a particularly great appreciator of history either, I'm guessing it was something I composed recently that concerned a recent event in the life of our great hero. Is it, I wonder, the scandalous and steamy affair of the two sorceresses and their terrible revenge on a certain two-timing Witcher?"

"Oh no, that part was surprisingly honest," said Geralt, a wry smile on his face as he took a long swig from the bottle, "I'm not going to deny facts. I was stupid, I deserved my fate and I'm probably going to regret what happened for the rest of my life. The problem was, you see, that I genuinely loved them both with all my heart. There wasn't a thing that could change that. In a way, after the accident that took away my memory, I had been given two different lives, and therefore two different loves of my life, and there was no honest way for me to throw either of them away. Sometimes I think the only thing I could have ever done was lose them both in the end."

"Very poetic for only half a bottle of vodka," noted Dandelion, "I wonder if we got started drinking early, by any chance?"

"I met some unexpected old friends on the road. It'd be rude not to share a bottle," said Geralt, "No, what I'm really pissed off about, Dandelion, is that you've apparently decided to dictate my future for me. Not only that, but rather ungratefully damned me to a life of aimless wandering, poverty and regret."

"Ye do wander aimlessly," interjected Zoltan over his shoulder.

"I do not. I wander with the clear intention of doing some more wandering. I've been travelling further afield lately, seeing what's on the other side of some hills. That's why I was a little late this year. Would you believe there are entire continents I haven't yet depopulated of monsters yet? I'm making a fortune. Talking of money, Dandelion," Geralt glowered at the flamboyantly dressed bard, "I certainly do not 'live hand to mouth, job to job, without two coins to rub together'."

"He keeps cheatin' me out of all me money in Gwent, for one thing! That's why he's banned from playing!" said Zoltan.

"I do not cheat. If I was cheating, I would just use Axii and be done with it. By the way, at least I know that's not how you use the Muster ability, Yarpen," said Geralt, causing the cheating dwarf's hand to jerk back as though he had accidentally picked up a cake that was still piping hot from the oven, "But you make a very good point. Since the Passiflora, I play Gwent professionally now. With stakes of hundreds, sometimes thousands. I'm at the same stage in the horse races. Incidentally, I also own the Emperor's finest black stallion, given to me as a reward for saving his daughter's life. In Roach's saddlebags - all horses are called Roach, even fancy-pants aristocratic horses - I'm storing so many valuable alchemical reagents, rare ores, monster's body parts, potions and old weapons and armour that I can't carry all of it and I keep running out of merchants to sell it to. By the way, could you please tell Vivaldi to hurry up and get his bank up and running again? I've turned into the sort of person who needs a bank."

"I get your point. So I exaggerated things slightly. You have to admit you did spend rather a lot of your funds on prostitutes and wine when you went through that depressed phase."

Geralt shrugged, "I only got through a tenth of it. I've had low moods before, I will do in the future, no matter where I end up. For instance, Yennefer would probably have trapped me in the house and refused to let me go wandering any more. She would make me buy overpriced fancy clothes that I feel uncomfortable in. Triss would want us to try adopting a child again. I've heard they really do eat all your money."

"Heaven forbid the Lone Wolf settle down!" Zoltan laughed, ignoring Yarpen's swearing as the other Dwarf won all his money from him, "You're getting on in years now, Geralt. You're going to be forced to settle down one way or the other."

"He's right, you know. Witchers may have longer lifespans than we regular mortals but that just means that we'll all have died off by the time you actually need to rely on someone."

"In strictest confidentiality of everyone in the tavern who can overhear me, my plan is to finally surrender to the Nilfgardian Empire's attempt to adopt me. I'm practically a second father to the Empress and I helped them win the war. They couldn't refuse to give me somewhere comfortable to settle down."

"Doesn't sound like a bad life, if you can stand Nilfgardians," said Zoltan.

"I'm... genuinely surprised you have all of this planned out!" said Dandelion.

"Hah, maybe it's because I'm getting old," Geralt had finished the bottle and was glancing at the barmaid, who fluttered her eyelashes at him as if to suggest something other than a fresh bottle of vodka might be available, "But seriously, the point is that you can't just write a man's future off like that. None of us can tell what's really going to happen to us in five years' time, or even tomorrow. That vodka you're drinking might be poisoned. I might meet a Wyvern on the way back to the inn I'm staying at, and be slightly too drunk and a second too slow. Or I might meet another woman."

Dandelion's eyes lit up at this suggestion, "Do you have anyone in mind? I find it hard to believe it's that barmaid."

The woman winked at Dandelion too, then took Geralt's coin and placed bottles on the table beside each guest, leaning in a little lower than strictly necessary to give Geralt a good view of her cleavage.

"Anything is possible. The future is limitless!" said the Witcher.

"To the future!" roared Zoltan, hiccuping and vaguely waving a newly filled cup at Geralt, sloshing it onto his slightly dusty but recently repaired Cat School Mastercrafted Witcher's brigandine.

"The future!" replied Geralt, drunkenly trying to clink the dwarf's cup with his bottle. Yarpen hastily moved the cards out of the way.

"To the uncharted land of the Future and her boundless horizons!" Dandelion joined the toast with a theatrical flourish. Then, more quietly, he added, "But you'll never stop missing Yennefer and Triss, right?"

"With all my heart, with each passing day," replied the Witcher.


End file.
